


Quarter of Flesh

by sailtheplains



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 01:17:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2047683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailtheplains/pseuds/sailtheplains





	Quarter of Flesh

The candle was purple but as far as she could tell, it had no scent. Perhaps it had burned away. Faded. It didn't really matter, she supposed. Not at the core. It wasn't for the scent anyway. The nail file was metal and it was the perfect length to bridge one side of the glass to the other while the wick burned down inside. The quarter lay, heads up, on the file. The file was cheap, she wasn't sure it would be able to stand up to the heat of the little flame--but appeared to be a better trooper than she expected. It stayed, bridging the gap for the quarter. The edges heated first, quickly spreading around the circle and up the nail file. 

This was not a new process. Though it _had_ been awhile since she'd done it. Mostly before the Medicine. Before the Medicine, the nightmares were constant horrors, the emotions ran too high, the rage flashing and intense and sudden--abruptly crashing in, smashing into her relationships, her actions, her life and then just as abruptly, vanishing. Exhausted. 

She could pick up the little handle of the nail file and lay the quarter on--it was a different process from what she'd used four years ago--but it would work. Well, it would--if she could get her hands to stop shaking. There was the promise of relief. It would quiet her thoughts, slow down the rush, calm everything. She knew it. But it _had_ been so long since she'd done it. The Medicine was gone now. Now she needed other Drugs.

Too long. She'd waited too long. 

She laid the file back onto the little flame to gather heat again and went to the bathroom. The tweezers were there, lying in wait. Waiting for her. 

She sucked her lips in around her teeth, swallowed and snatched them. She gulped down a glass of water too.

_Stay hydrated! The most important thing! Hydrate! Hydrate! Hydrate!_

The little claws bit into the edge of the quarter. It felt so easy now. Now to test the edge on her calf. Lay it down as long as she could stand--and then let go. Let the whole metal piece lay on her skin. Let her eyes roll back and her teeth bite into her quilt. Felt every muscle in every other part of her body tense and fight to keep her calf relaxed. Don't tense. Don't fight it.

_Hydrate-hydrate-hydrate_

She'd tried. She'd rationed the remainder of her Medicine after she'd left the base for good. She could get to three days without it before she started really wigging out. Before the anger would erupt from nothing, searing everything and everyone, flaying her nerves to ash. Turning her connections to charred twigs, smoldering ruins. 

_Hydrate! Hydrate! Isolate!_

She lifted the little hands, bit the claws into the edge of the quarter and drew it to her calf again. Don't wait. Don't waste time. Quit being a wimp.

The little rats inside her head are clamoring for space, tearing out damp sawdust brains and scratching in new dens.

New nightmares. New chases. New deaths.

The quarter sears white into the skin.

Her breath shortened. Mouth going slack and saliva sticking to the quilting, connecting it to her lips when she drew back from it. Her gut tensed, abdomen turning dark. A strange heat inside of her--

The heat dissipated and she slumped back, exhausted--like she'd come. The rats digging in and she'd just come. No physical bliss--but mindless quiet. The searing heat obliterates all conscious thought. Wipes away all the pain, horror, self-loathing for a precious few moments. It's counter-productive. She knew that. Was it really worth leaving circles of scars for just a few moments of silence in her head? Well, now that the Medicine is gone--it seems almost logical. Her few remaining friends don't deserve this--they don't deserve her flashes of anger, of nonsensical rambling and ranting, of the flaring of desire she gets to hit them. For nothing. They don't deserve it. 

The self-loathing either consumes her or she tries to consume it. The Medicine is gone--she does what she can. 

Before the Medicine, she put other scars on her skin. They were still there, healed over five years now. Dark scarred purple or deep red or beige on her legs. The ones on her arms are still white. The one on her face healed over without leaving a trace. She can still feel the scar tissue when she touched the flesh--but there is no physical sign of it. 

Her calf has flared up in red, body swirling with heat around the new bubbling white blistering. They aren't perfect circles. The curve of flesh doesn't allow for that. Half of the edge, parts of George's curls bubble up to the middle, meeting each other to create a mutation of Mister Washington on her skin.

It would be poetic if _LIBERTY_ could stick in her skin---but also ridiculous and stupid.

She got a sudden ache in her back and straightened out, laying out to ease it. Her whole body is confused by the sharp needle-hot pain in her leg and the endorphins making everything else sensitive and pleasurable. She wants to fuck suddenly--let someone in passed the walls, the armor--fuck her. Brutalize her. Take her apart....and then put her back together. Trust someone enough not to try and break her. She squeezed her knee.

_No one would ever watch to touch you_

Let the rats in.

She was alone. There would be none of that anyway. Trust, fucking, letting anyone in. Just the confusion in her skin, the flaring pain in her calf, the overly-sensitized bone-deep pleasure elsewhere. And then the nausea started. 

Nausea from the blend of paralyzing, thought-obliterating pain, or maybe her weak body, maybe her various health issues, self-loathing, her ugliness and her awareness of that ugliness, maybe the events which caused these problems in the first place. 

_It's okay, c'mon. God would be okay with this. No, c'mon, shhh._

Leaning forward doesn't ease the pain in her back. She'll have to lay down for good for the night. That's fine--everyone is asleep upstairs. Best go to bed anyway. They'd be up for work in a few hours. Her fingers and lips tingled. 

Let the rats in at quarter to flesh. 

_Hydrate-hydrate-hydrate_

 

The anger in her back enrages her. She tears out her hair and then bursts into tears.


End file.
